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Talk:Why do we love merlin/@comment-5659316-20130415172455
Well, it's a few different things for me. 1) first and foremost I LOVE Arthurian legend, even more so now after watching Merlin. So this show was right up my alley to begin with. 2) I enjoy Colin Morgan's acting. I'd never seen him in anything before Merlin, but now after seeing both all of the Merlin series and the Irish film Parked which he played a VERY different character in, I'm extremely impressed. (Ditto the actor who played young Mordred in "The Boy in the stripped pyjamas") 3) One thing that impressed me about this version of the Arthurian tale was the morals. Yeah, maybe series 4 and 5 didn't focus on them AS much, being more Merlin-must-save-Arthur-at-all-costs-but-then-fail-horribly centered, but the feel of them was still there. Morgana's bitterness, contrasted with Merlin's staying on the 'good side' really struck a cord with me. Because a lot of people sort of expect the character who's super good straight off (aka, Merlin) to go bad and the one who's a little bit of a lose-canon (Morgana) to mellow out and become a wonderful person. It's a sterotyical protrayal from various movies (not just Arthurian either) that's always bothered me. Because people think it's like that in real life too. But it's not. So I liked how the Merlin series turned that on its head by keeping Merlin, whatever mistakes he made, consistantly good, and having Morgana be the crazy one who was just consumed by bitterness and corrupted by her own magic. Honestly, as much as I liked first and second season Morgana's character (she was WONDERFUL, don't get me wrong), I found Merlin himself more relatable. When Morgana did something, she got credit, generally, Merlin on the other hand never did. And he wasn't exactly treated like royalty under Uther's roof and rule either. But he didn't take it out on ARTHUR, the way Morgana did. He even showed kindness to Uther in series three when he was going nuts from the mandrake root. It's the same thing with Mordred. That's why I like Merlin better. Merlin lost EVERYTHING, gave up EVERYTHING, for Arthur and never got cudos until the king DIED, but he never turned traitor. So Mordred lost Kara and Morgana felt alone a lot, so what? Merlin lost Freya and aside from Gaius (who, sometimes didn't GET things, as helpful as he was to Merlin) had no one, either. But he never ran and ratted out Mordred's secret (the having magic thing, NOT the Kara thing, which of course he DID tell on him about) to Arthur the way Mordred ratted out his being Emrys to Morgana. What I liked was how it shows that no one HAS to become evil. Bitterness doesn't have to destroy every good quailty in you. Mordred and Morgana became bad, but Merlin never did. I also thought it was very realstic that Guinevere got everything Morgana wanted but wasn't happy because she no longer had Arthur. It wasn't HER dream to be queen on her own, but she was stuck with it by another's actions. Sad, but realstic and moving. 4) I also love the comedy and the costumes and the castle they film in...